The Bronx Ink

by Amanda Staab

Fast food lures students after school. Photo by Amanda Staab

For some students in the South Bronx, the 3 p.m. bell doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to go home. Instead, it signals lunchtime for many teens at Morris High School in Morrisania.

Dozens of students, who often skip both breakfast and lunch, make their way toward 165th Street to the nearest Chinese restaurant conveniently serving up French fries, their favorite, or cross Boston Road to a deli advertising fried chicken and pizza.

“This is not healthy, having this all the time after school, but it tastes better than what we are getting at school,” said senior Sereane Swanson, holding books in her arms while she waited for two friends to finish their fries, drenched with ketchup and barbecue sauce and reeking of grease.

Most of the teens appear to be healthy, but obesity is a growing problem in the Bronx. One third of high school students and two thirds of adults are either overweight or obese, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Though they may not want to believe it, the students, especially those with a junk food habit, are not immune to high cholesterol and hypertension.

“It’s not long before they’ll start having their heart attacks and their strokes,” said Alicia Flynn, a nutritionist at the nearby Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center. She often helps teen clients find healthier ways to snack and eat meals.

The Bloomberg administration has also tried to do its part and support initiatives to encourage New Yorkers to eat better. In addition to targeting trans fats in public restaurants, the city has made changes to food in schools. In the past two years, student lunches have experienced a makeover that included less fat and sodium and more whole grains.

But many teens say they just don’t eat the food even though half the high school students in the South Bronx are eligible for a free or reduced lunch.

“It’s nasty,” said senior Malaysia Scott, who’ll only eat the French fries.

Another student, sophomore Raul Lopez, said he usually only eats the pizza or chicken fingers. But, he admitted, he prefers fatty foods.

Still, other students said they can get fruits and vegetables in their cafeteria, even if they are required to fill up a full tray of food they don’t necessarily want in order to get them.

“Even though it’s a waste of food, you have to get a tray,” said sophomore Diamond Carothers. Students take what they intended to get and throw away the rest.

This strikes a chord with Flynn. She’s not sure how much food is wasted in Bronx schools, but, she said, “if someone can calculate it, then we have something to yell and scream about.”

In addition to teaching kids the value of what they throw away, Flynn said schools might consider inviting private vendors into their cafeterias to offer students healthy meals, maybe even ethnic foods that they just might like, in exchange for vouchers.

“Food is food,” said senior Juan Vasquez. “You can’t waste it. If you’re hungry, you got to eat. It’s unhealthy to not eat when you’re hungry.”

That  attitude is precisely the root of the obesity problem among young people in the Bronx, said Flynn. “When you skip meals, you throw your metabolism off, you slow it down,” she said. This makes it easier to gain weight and harder to lose it, which can put a teenager on the road to obesity.

In an effort to promote more healthy eating, the Bloomberg administration recently put more restrictions on school bake sales, which traditionally helped student raise money for extracurricular activities and trips. The move angers some students. “I would like to keep them,” said junior Aaron Heatley. “It brings more money to the school for funding.” The restrictions, which are being implemented this year,  allow schools to have one bake sale a month as long as it takes place after lunch and raises money for the Parent-Teacher Associations and other parent groups. Between sales, said Heatley, the kids will just have to sell candy instead.

Even Flynn doesn’t think the restriction is helpful. The bake sales teach kids to work together for a common cause, she said, and having dessert once in a while isn’t such a bad thing. “As a nutritionist, I say go ahead and have your cake, just know how much you can have,” said Flynn.

The city also plans to make healthful improvements to the snack selection in vending machines at schools. Students said they don’t know many classmates who can afford to use the vending machines too often, but it might be a good start to getting kids on track to better health.

by Sarah Wali

For the past six months, Harrilal Ramlakhan has managed to avoid buying most of his food from local supermarkets. He is a community gardener who plants and sells his own fruits, vegetables and spices. But when the seasons turn and the cold settles in, he will have to switch his gardening tools for a shopping cart, and the idea depresses him.

“All the stuff that they have in the grocery stores is mass production, heavy with chemical and fertilizer so that it can remain on the shelves,” he said.  “But when it comes to food value, you don’t have that.  They will advertise and tell you it’s the best it’s the best but there’s nothing in it. “

With Ramlakhan and other farmers coming to the end of their season, residents of the Bronx’s East Tremont watch hopelessly as their strongest source of health food, the farmer’s market shuts, down.   Now they have to turn to bodegas, small markets, or supermarket bargain shopping, where price takes precedence over nutrition.

Most shoppers go to the largest supermarket in the area, Western Beef. The massive warehouse-like structure on Prospect Avenue is part of a chain of 21 full service supermarkets.  The company’s marketing strategy is to get full service markets in areas that have been shunned by other large corporations.

Western Beef, Inc. claims to offer service tailored to the ethnic needs of the community while taking income levels into consideration.  They offer products from the Goya line for the growing Latino population in the Bronx, along with exotic fruits such as yampi, a type of yam, and ajicito, a small pepper from the Dominican Republic, for a reasonable price.

Most customers arrive at the store with bargain flyers highlighting this week’s specials instead of grocery lists.   Ahdreanna Astudello, 49, says she only buys what is on the flyer.   She’s unemployed at the moment and says she has no choice.

Bargain shopping is a necessity for many residents in the Bronx.  For the borough with the highest unemployment rate, economics takes precedence over health, and it’s showing.    According to the New York Department of Health, 31 percent of South Bronx residents are obese, the highest rate in the city.  They attribute this to physical inactivity and lack of nutrition because of poor food choices.

Astudello is forced to stretch her dollars as thin as possible, and that affects her grocery shopping.

“Instead of milk, I drink Diet Coke,” said Astudello.  “It’s cheaper.”

Milk costs $2.99 a gallon at Western Beef, while a two-liter of Pepsi Diet Coke, is only sale for $1.99 cents.    The mother of two doesn’t have many healthy choices in her hand.  She considers taking advantage of the two for $5 deal on Florida’s Natural Orange Juice, but decides against it.

Most of the foods in the bargain flyer have little nutritional value, and are high in carbs, calories and fats.  Little Debbie is a popular product on the list, with their cupcakes, oatmeal creme pies and honey buns on sale.  At four for $5, the honey buns are a steal to Astudello.  She pays little notice to the nutrition facts, and isn’t concerned with the 12 grams of fat per bun.

Passion Bryant, 22, supplements fresh fruits and vegetables with canned foods. “The vegetables they have aren’t that fresh anyway, “ she said.  “I might as well buy it in a can.  It lasts longer and is cheaper.”

Bryant visits the farmer’s market when they are in season.  Although she was disappointed with the size of the market and the quality of food, she knows it’s better for her than the can of Libby’s fruits that’s on sale for 50 cents each.

Next Bryant heads for the cereal isle.  She doesn’t even glance at the healthier choices offered by Post, and priced at about $4.50.  Instead she heads straight for the Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, and gets two for $5.

Unhealthy choices in the bargain flyer are not unique to Western Beef.  Supermarkets all over the South Bronx neighborhood are offering discounts on ice cream, frozen pizza and cakes, with few healthy alternatives.

Fine Fare, the second largest supermarket in the area, has a Snack-Tacular Savings section which entices customers with selections such as Lays XXL Potato Chips at two for $6 and two Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats or Cinnabon Carmel Bars for $5.

Sonya Santiago says the choice is hers, and she chooses to feed her four grandchildren vegetable and produce.   They go through about a gallon of milk a day, and if the children want a snack,  she tries to be healthy by giving them Apple Jacks, fruit or apple sauce.

“Junk food is not allowed in my house,” she said.  “If I am going to spend my money it will be on something that is worth it.”

Santiago feels that although the quality of the produce in larger markets isn’t perfect, it’s a better in the long run.  She sees it as an investment in her family’s health. Besides, she argued, the produce is often on sale too.  Although prices don’t dip as low as the farmer’s market, with a little budgeting she is able to satisfy her family’s appetite without the health risk.

by Connor Boals

Sarah Shaikh, community outreach organizer for Schervier Nursing Care Facility, isn’t pleased with the healthy options for the residents of the West Bronx neighborhood of Marble Hill. Read the full story

by Sarah Wali

Karen Washington traces her persuasive powers as a community leader back to 1966, when she was 12 years old. Her younger brother had insulted much bigger kids, and they were standing outside their building in Harlem waiting to beat him up.  Her mother pleaded with Karen to go down and calm the rowdy bunch.

Karen stood tall and confident, and in a wise voice beyond her years told the big kids that her brother didn’t mean what he said, and that they probably didn’t want to get in trouble for hitting him.

She surprised them, she said, by confounding their expectations of African American women. “They don’t even know me, but they have this preconceived idea that I’m black, I’m loud, I’m uneducated,” said Washington. “So I use that sort of persona then with educated language and I get people to listen.”

Within five minutes, she had talked the angry teenagers out of hitting her brother.

Now, at 55, Karen Washington uses similar conflict resolution techniques to solve bigger problems in her current Bronx neighborhood.  In the 21 years that she has lived in East Tremont, she has taken on tough issues, such as crack and cocaine and street violence.  She brings the same focus and passion to her latest mission – providing healthy food to low-income New Yorkers and using neighborhood gardens to create community and ultimately battle crime.

“The social issues intertwine with food,” she said. “When you don’t have money and you can’t provide for your family, you are going to buy the cheapest food items for your family and you see an increase in crime.  You need to feed your family.”

Washington created La Familia Verde, a coalition of 12 community gardens in East Tremont in 1992, and started a local Bronx farmer’s market where everyone could sell their produce. She joined the board of Just Food, an organization which connects local and urban farms with communities, and the Mary Mitchell Center, a community center blocks from her house.

When Washington was looking to find funding for the Mary Mitchell Center, she called the one person she knew could help, U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano.  She went to Washington, and explained how the center was going to fight crime by keeping kids of the street in after school activities, and increase job productivity by offering technology classes.

“He sees it,” said Washington. “He sees that people in low-income areas may not have the resources but we do have the knowledge and the power.”

Her passion for improving lives led her first to Hunter College, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in physical therapy.   By 1981, she had completed a master’s degree in occupational biomechanics and ergonomics, and began her career as a physical therapist.

Washington moved into 2161 Prospect Ave. in East Tremont from Harlem in 1985 to give her children, Kendra and Bryant, more space to play. The cozy row house seemed a perfect place to raise her little boy and girl, except for an empty lot across the street.  She was told developers were using the plot to build a row of houses similar to hers, but when they found too much bedrock in the soil, they abandoned the idea and the plot.

“Year after year, there was garbage and vans and stuff like that,” said Washington.    “If you live near garbage, people think that you are that garbage, and we are not garbage.”

Although she was working full-time as a physical therapist, Washington — with the help of her neighbor, Jose Lugo — set out to save the desolate patch of land.    By 1989, she had successfully petitioned Green Thumb, a city Parks and Recreations group, to help her transfer the city-owned plot to a community garden, the Garden of Happiness.

Neighbors flocked to the new garden to plant collard greens, mustard greens, kale, cantaloupe, corn, string beans and squash.  They spent hours comparing gardening tips, vegetables and stories about life in the Bronx.

“I learned they were having problems with health, schools, housing and jobs,”  she said.  “I felt that the community gardening work I do is great because it also helped bring out the social issues that were affecting the community, and they were huge.”

At first, Washington was hesitant about going to a community meeting.  She was a mother of two juggling a full time job and the management of the Garden of Happiness.    However, after much coaxing by a neighbor, she finally attended a Crotona Community Coalition meeting, and it changed her life.

“When I walked in there I saw at least 50 people talking about the same problems that were going on in the neighborhood,” she said.  “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m not alone.’ ”

Washington became a regular at both the Crotona meetings and the North West Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, where she presented solutions to the major issues the community was facing. When she was called upon, she marched up to the podium with her gray-streaked dredlocks swinging behind her, and in a firm tone gave solutions to community issues.

As she spoke, her eyes opened wide exuding the passion she felt for the cause.  Members would discuss issues with her after the meeting, and she would stand quietly looking at the floor, with her head tilted towards them listening attentively.

Kendra went on to become a school principal and Bryant an inspector for the Department of Health, and Washington focused more of her efforts on her community.

In 2003, she accepted the role of president of the North West Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.  The Rev. Jai Dean of the Community Church, which is based in both the Bronx and Brooklyn, attributes the changes she has made to her ability to network and grab the right people’s attention.

“She was active, she knew the politicians, and she knew who to call to get things done,” he said.

Last year, she took her concerns to a City Council hearing.  There, she spoke about the problems she had encountered with the Green Thumb program.

“By the time she had finished her presentation, it was like we can all go home now,” said Dyanne Norris, principal administrative associate for Green Thumb.  “She was most articulate, and the one person who presented answers to the questions, and I was just overwhelmed.”

Washington focused her efforts on providing the tools her community would need to succeed. In 2005, a devastating fire in the Garden of Happiness reassured her that her community appreciated and needed the work she had done.

“We stood out there, and we were crying,” she said.  “Then the neighbors came by to pat us on the back and say ‘Don’t worry, we’ll build again.’ I knew right then and there how much the community loved that garden.”

She applied for the grant program at Orange Thumb, a garden tool making company, explaining the situation at the Garden of Happiness.  The application was accepted and the group was awarded $4,500 in cash and Home Depot gift certificates.

“That’s my passion,” she said. “I love to grow food.”

One rainy Sunday afternoon in October, Washington sat at her East Tremont kitchen, eating yogurt and granola, listening to WFAN. The Yankees were beating the Red Sox.

Ashley and Noodles, her two rescue cats, played at her feet.

She looked out her window at the Garden of Happiness, and smiled.